Why I Hate When People Ask Me to Recommend a Science Fiction Book
Please be more specific!
I do get this every so often. “I don’t read science fiction. Recommend me a book.”
They assume that because I know science fiction and fantasy, I can just somehow pull something out of my rolodex, as it were. Can I? Yes. I could just pull out something I read and liked recently.
But if that’s Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, it’s not going to help. Anathem is probably my favorite Stephenson book. It’s not a book I’d hand to somebody who ‘doesn’t read science fiction.’
When you ask an author or reviewer this question you aren’t just putting us on the spot. You’re not giving us the information we need.
Another variant I get is “My 14-year-old loves science fiction. What book should I buy them for Christmas?”
Maybe I might toss out Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater Than Death for this. It’s aimed more at 16 year olds, but a 14 year old who’s a solid fan wouldn’t have problems with it. But, here’s the thing: Your kid might not want a space princess power fantasy. It might be right up their alley. It might not. (I love those books, by the way, but they are very much a space princess power fantasy, which is what makes them so much fun).
So, please don’t ask those questions of us. What should you do instead?
Give Us What We Need To Know
When I do get asked the dreaded “I don’t read science fiction. Recommend me a book” question the first thing I ask is this:
What do you read?
Tell us what you already enjoy reading! Because the fun thing about science fiction and fantasy is that they can be so, so many things. If it’s set in the future and/or requires a technological advance we don’t have, it’s science fiction. If it has magic, it’s fantasy, whether the magic is Vancian wizards throwing fireballs or that one grandmother who always knows what to put in your tea to make you feel better when you’re sick. This is true regardless of what else is in the book!
Let’s say you are a huge fan of police procedurals. Probably the classic fantasy police procedural series is the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch. Start with Rivers of London. It’s an excellent example of exactly what it is. I might also dredge into the past and pull out Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels, of which the three primary ones are police procedurals. Caves of Steel is the cop given a tough case and an out of town partner he doesn’t know or trust. The fact that the out of town partner is a robot is color. (Asimov also wrote some excellent non-SF mysteries). If you want noir, Richard K. Morgan is currently the undisputed master of SF noir.
Romance readers? If you like a good Regency or similar, I’m going to send you to C.L. Polk’s The Midnight Bargain. She has a fine hand with romance in general and knows how to create intimate relationships that truly ring true. Lois McMaster Bujold can also write a decent romance, demonstrated in Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen and my personal favorite Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. (It’s a really good example of the fake dating trope). Want M/M? I’m keeping an eye on Everina Maxwell because her second book, Ocean’s Echo, was so much better than her first, Winter’s Orbit.
If thrillers are your thing, I’m very fond of Neal Stephenson’s Zodiac. He becomes a lot less obtuse when writing thrillers.
For those who love literary fiction, right now I would point to Becky Chambers. Her Galaxy and the Ground Within is the group of disparate people snowed in in the B&B who have to learn to deal with each other and each other’s problems. It’s in space. They’re aliens. But it’s still the same plot.
You get the picture. I want to recommend you a book, I want to give you the entry drug that will pull you into the wonderful world I live in.
I don’t want to recommend you a book you hate.
Another thing that does matter is demographics. Yes, I can recommend you a good list of books by trans (Charlie Jane Anders), non-binary (Rivers Solomon), Black (P. Djeli Clark), Asian (Yoon Ha Lee), female, etc authors, if that’s what you want. So say it up front.
If, on the other hand, you only want to read books by white men you’ll get a side eye…and probably not a recc. They are still the easiest to find, after all. This isn’t to knock the marvelous white men I know who are producing great work, but they still have things on easy mode.
So, What About that 14-year-old?
This is a slightly different situation, but have you asked them who they have read lately? Comp titles are good for recommendations.
If the kid enjoyed the Hunger Games then they might like Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series, which is a very different YA dystopia that’s about fame and looks and how important they aren’t. It’s a few years old now, but it still stands up.
Do they like grimdark? I have to say that Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow is a great combination of grimdark and badass at the same time. It’s also a mecha book. I loved this book and I’m not a fan of grimdark right now (there’s just been soooo much of it).
Young Arthuriana fans must read Tracy Deonne’s Legendborn, which has a very, very different and new take on the legend and the return of Arthur in our time. I can’t say more without spoilers, but it doesn’t go the way you expect.
My point here is that there are hundreds of science fiction books. If you just ask us to recommend one, then you are asking too much…and running the risk of being recommended something you won’t enjoy. Which if it’s a gift is even worse!
Tell us what you want. Tell us what makes you read a book under the covers by flashlight. What makes you go “Just one more chapter.”
For me, that’s many things, because I have a very broad taste. For you? You know what it is. You know why you have to keep turning those pages.
It’s starting to get to the time when you might be thinking about holiday gifts. So! If you need a recommendation for somebody who “doesn’t read science fiction” then post details in the comments section. Let’s get some discussion going. (And I’m not the only one allowed to make recommendations, as dangerous as that is to my already tragic to be read pile!)
These posts will normally be paywalled. I’m making the first couple free to tempt you all to subscribe. Next week’s post will look at the new law of nature we’ve discovered…